Ingenuity

My dear Friends in Christ,

Today we are left to wonder why Jesus would actually praise a man for being doubly dishonest. Jesus tells of a man who cheated his employer and then, when caught, before being fired, cheated his employer a second time by writing off some of the debts of those who owed the employer money. There is a craftiness to the steward’s actions. The steward himself does not do the actual deed of cooking the books. He has the master’s debtors do the actual writing so that they are now implicated in the dishonesty. Accordingly, they are now complicit with him in his crime and will owe him favors after he loses his job. And, Jesus praises this! Why would he do this! Jesus is not praising dishonesty here. He is praising ingenuity — ingenuity as the antithesis of complaint, whining, and despair. Jesus points out that those who are outside our religious circles tend to be more ingenious in times of trouble than we committed believers, who too often give of ourselves over to grumbling and inaction. We cannot serve both God and mammon. Serving God over mammon means using the gifts we have been given justly, prudently, and honestly. It is a challenge to keep God first in our lives and to always act justly, prudently, and honestly.

The Annual Catholic Appeal continues. We as a parish have become stale at reaching our goal of $50,000. To date $28,012 has been pledged by 147 donors of our parish putting us at 56% of our goal. We still have some work to do. Pledge cards are available in the Sacristy if you would like to contribute and help Corpus Christi Parish reach its goal.

May God bless you all,

Father John